


There's Too Many Miles On My Bones

by clairebear702



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 07:00:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2803727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clairebear702/pseuds/clairebear702
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. There's Too Many Miles On My Bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things change.

Some things change. You were asleep and now you are awake. You were bleeding and now you are not. It was morning and now it is night. Other things don’t. When you do sleep, you always dream. One of you is always falling, and it is never you. You wish it were. The door down the hall never opens. You wish it would. Sam yells at you and the others give you pitying looks and you expect to feel something, but you never do. You worry about them finding out that you look forward to the moments in a fight when your head snaps back, when skin breaks and blood runs from your mouth, because at least then you feel something. At least that is different from the permanent weight of lead in your stomach. It is familiar. Sometimes, though, you feel it all at once, and everything in you ties itself into knots. On those days, you are left paralyzed on the bed, wishing that you could scream and no one would hear you. Sometimes you pretend that you can hear his soft breathing through the wall and it calms you. You lie to everyone, but you lie to yourself most often. 

It has been 3 days since you left the apartment. It has been 2 since you’ve eaten. You cannot bring yourself to care. You know that Sam will come by soon to check on you. You will have to pretend that you are fine. “I’m fine,” you will say. That’s all you ever seem to say these days. It is hollow and they all know it but no one says anything. They just stare at you sadly and you have to look at the ground. 

You leave food outside his room and sit in the hallway. He never takes it until he knows you aren’t there, but you are feeling petulant and desperate. That, too, is familiar. You glare at the door until dusk falls, and then your short-lived spark of anger turns inward and fizzles out. He is on the other side of the door, alive. You know this, and it is so much more than you deserve. You are selfish to ask for more. You force yourself to get up and leave. You go for a walk. The noise of the city makes you feel safer, more sane. 

When you get back, something has changed. His door is open. The air leaves your lungs in a rush and your fingernails dig into your arm. You know he is gone. You have been waiting weeks for him to leave. You are surprised it took him this long. You are useless. You cannot help him. You are not what he needs. Your fist shoots out and clenches around the vase on the counter. It shatters with a crack and a sound escapes your throat. You watch the blood flow from your hand and drip from your fingers and you are fiercely glad. Your ears are ringing and your throat is closing up and you don’t try to fight it. 

“Steve?” 

You flinch, and your eyes jump to the doorway and there he is. Frozen on his way out of your room, one of your sweatshirts hanging off his too skinny frame. His eyes are large and sunken with bruising shadows underneath them and his hair is longer than it was the last time you saw it. Your heart breaks at the sight of him.

“Bucky,” you gasp, and all of a sudden your knees give out, and you are f a l l i n g, always falling. He is there without a sound, and he touches your face cautiously, but you are done tiptoeing so you bury your face in his neck and breathe in and in and in. His arms come up tentatively around your shoulders, one flesh and one metal and something comes loose inside of you. Knots come undone that you didn’t even know were there, and out come tears and laughter and maybe a scream or two, along with a thousand apologies and iterations of his name. He holds you and you can feel him shaking as well, so eventually you drag the both of you to the couch and lay pressed against his side like you used to in the winter. You feel loose and relaxed and empty. You turn your head to look at him, and his blue eyes are already boring into yours, and you don’t know what you see there but it takes the emptiness away. And you know that nothing is okay yet, but you begin to hope that it might be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and constructive criticism welcome!


	2. I Can't Carry the Weight of the World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your body is strange to you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Bucky's POV of the previous chapter. Both titles are from "Flight" by Lifehouse.

Your body is strange to you. It does not obey. Your heart rate picks up even though you are not running and you can’t stop it, and there is pain even though you are not injured. There is numbness and you can feel everything and your ears are buzzing and you can’t. get. air. ----------

Your body is strange to you. You tap your fingers against your skull and stretch your legs over and over to prove to yourself that it is yours. You don’t feel real sometimes, when you’ve woken up with a scream in your throat and the smell of smoke on your skin and watching blood stain a blond hairline. You press yourself against the door and listen to his footsteps and his sighs until you have stopped shaking. You want—no, you do not. Wanting is not permitted. 

All the same there is an ache in your chest when you know he is sitting outside the room. You have to remind yourself that it is not you he is waiting for. He is waiting for his friend. You cannot be his friend. You are not even a person. 

But when he leaves the ache increases, and all of a sudden you are shivering, that bone-deep cold that never seems to leave you piercing your stomach like ice and making your jaw clench. You tell yourself it is bearable, but you are out the door and in his room before you give your body permission. There is a sweatshirt hanging out of a drawer, and you pull it over your head out of instinct, folding your arms over your chest to try and get rid of the awful cold. It smells like him. You realize it is stealing, but maybe it is ok if you just take this one piece of him. Maybe that will be enough.

A crash from the main room makes you drop into a defensive stance, your heart racing. You are at the doorway quicker than a shadow, only to see him standing over broken ceramic, staring at the bright blood dripping from his hand. You are distracted by the blood. You calculate immediately that he is not in danger, and look at his face. You do not know what his expression means, except that you have seen it in the mirror. 

“Steve?”

His name is out of your mouth before you realized it was on the tip of your tongue. You think it has always been there. He looks up, startled, and you wince. You have been unwilling to meet his gaze for fear of what you would see there, but now you find you cannot look away. His blue eyes are shining with unshed tears, and he says the name like it is his last hope.

“Bucky.” 

It flies across the room like a gift, and you catch it and decide that it is yours. 

He slides to his knees and you are there, without thought. Your hands reach out to touch him, and you half expect to be punished, but you are not. His tears are on your fingertips. He rests his forehead on your shoulder and fists his hands in your shirt, and for a moment you are frozen, for a moment you expect it to hurt. You have not been touched without pain in such a long time. Not since a different life.

He begins to sob in earnest, and you bring your arms up around him because you know this, you have done this, you have held him and run your fingers through hair the color of sunlight. He is warm and you can feel the steady beating of his heart and the cold leeches out of you finally. 

He recovers enough to move to the couch, and you go willingly. You turn to look at him and get a flash of a much smaller body peeking out from under the covers at you, with a sweaty brow and fever-bright eyes. You realize that he has been multiple people. He turns to you, and there is no fear in his eyes, and he is pressed all against your side, making you vulnerable, and you don’t want to hurt him. You have never wanted to hurt him. Maybe that is enough to make you a person too.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and constructive criticism are welcome! I might write one from Bucky's POV later.


End file.
